Stan Lee - Page 2

You probably haven't heard since they haven't really been making a big deal of it, but this year marks the official 75th Anniversary of Marvel Comics. Sort of. It actually marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Marvel Comics #1, which introduced the world to the Human Torch and paved the way for the company that would eventually become the modern Marvel Comics which really came about in 1961, but you know what? That's a good enough reason for a party.

To that end, this week saw the release of the Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration, an anthology that caught my eye mostly because it features legendary and still hugely popular Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm adapting a Captain America story written by Stan Lee in 1941, and that is definitely something that I want to read. But with 55 pages in the anthology, there's a heck of a lot more in there besides, including the return of Alias by the original creative team of Bendis, Gaydos and Hollingsworth, and essays by comics journalists including our own Andrew Wheeler, making this one of those rare anthologies where it's all pretty good stuff.

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

Drawing comics is time-consuming, sometimes crushing, occasionally rewarding, and almost impossible to quit if you love it. And it helps if you get to do it around other artists who love it as much as you do.

Those are some of the key takeaways from Comic Book Artists: Next Generation, an AT&T U-Verse documentary about the artists at Toronto's R.A.I.D. Studio (a.k.a. the Royal Academy of Illustration and Design; though it's not a real Royal Academy in the strictest sense). The studio has ten resident artists, but the half-hour documentary shines a light on four key players: Ramón Pérez, Marcus To, Francis Manapul and Kalman Andrasofszky.

A: Y'know, the way you phrase that question makes it sound like I've written about everything except who my favorite superhero is, and... that doesn't sound right. I'm a little too lazy to go and look, but it feels like surely at some point in the last 210 columns, I probably would've mentioned that. Oh well, I'm sure I'll probably get to talking about Batman at some point.

Anyway, back to the question. Favorite minor villains? OH MY GOD, IT'S THE ENFORCERS I LOVE THE ENFORCERS SO MUCH LET'S TALK ABOUT FANCY DAN FOR THE NEXT THREE HOURS OH MY GOD.

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

Each weekday, ComicsAlliance brings you a carefully selected variety of links from around the web about comics and comics-related media, including movies, video games, toys, and whatever else might be worth noting. Quite frankly, these are items you may just need to know about to have a productive day. Take a look at today's hand-picked links after the jump.

Ravage 2099 and Stripperella co-creator Stan Lee has been channeling Andy Rooney in a series of videos on World of Heroes called "Stan's Rants." Like those missives of the late American broadcaster, these clips are mostly benign "cranky old man" bits. His newest one is about how he hates being on hold, for example.

But the video above, which is from last week, is a knife in the guts of less famous comics creators -- which is to say, nearly all of them. In the video, Lee complains about having to sit through long credits at the end of movies, including superhero movies.

"Nobody knows who [these people] are, nobody can read them and nobody cares," he says, astonishingly.

But here's the problem: Those credits are usually where the names of comics creators who wrote and drew the characters the movies are based on actually get seen.

The Marvel Unlimited app is a gigantic, messy cache of awesome and terrible old comic books: a library of 13,000 or so back issues of Marvel titles, available on demand for subscribers with tablets or mobile phones. Like any good back-room longbox, it’s disorganized and riddled with gaps, but it’s also full of forgotten and overlooked jewels, as well as a few stone classics. In Marvel Unlimited Edition, Eisner-winning critic Douglas Wolk dives into the Unlimited archive to find its best, oddest and most intriguing comics.

Ego the Living Planet is one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's trippier creations: introduced in 1966 in Thor #132, he is literally a planet who is also a dude. With a face. (His first appearance was one of the photo-collages that Kirby was occasionally doing in those days; the gaunt, bearded face that Kirby pasted onto a planet shape was significantly different from most of the characters he designed.) Understandably, it's a little bit hard to do much with a planet-sized character who has to interact with humans, but nearly every artist who's gotten to work with Ego over the years has clearly relished the chance to draw his massive, scowling visage.

I didn't make it out to the theater to see TheAmazing Spider-Man 2 this weekend -- I had some crucial paint drying that needed to be watched -- but all the hype surrounding it actually did make me want to go back and read some classic Spider-Man stories. The only question was which one would have everything that I wanted, which was pretty tricky since I've only really seen Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone lately thanks to their appearances on The Tonight Show.

But then I found one of the all-time classics, Amazing Spider-Man #89, the one where Spider-Man has to go to the laundromat with a bag on his head because he's trying to get money by appearing as a guest on a talk show. It's even got Electro in it -- although I don't think any of the other 83 villains from the movie make an appearance.

On the off chance that you want to kick off your weekend by going into a blinding rage, I have some good news! Stan "The Man" Lee, one of the founding fathers of Marvel Comics and the co-creator of characters like Spider-Man and Thor, recently did an interview with Bloomberg Television where he said the phrase "I wish my friend Bob Kane were still with us — he’s the fellow who created Batman," a collection of words that I do not understand.

Unfortunately, the report transcribing the quote did not mention whether Lee was rolling his eyes and making a wanking motion while he said this, so we're forced to assume he was sincere.

Welcome back to Comics Alliance

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on .
To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you.
To activate your account, please confirm your password.
When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

Welcome back to Comics Alliance

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://comicsalliance.com using your original account information.